The S&P 500 is up a healthy 13% or so in 2026. Most investors would happily take that.
But a handful of ETFs have made it look tame: the ARK Genomic Revolution ETF (ARKG) is up 94.6%, the iShares MSCI South Korea ETF (EWY) 87.3%, the iShares MSCI Taiwan ETF (EWT) 82.2%, the VanEck Semiconductor ETF (SMH) 69.8% and ProShares UltraPro QQQ (TQQQ) 58.8%.
Here’s what’s behind the run.
Why these funds are so hot
It’s no secret that parts of the AI trade are red hot this year, and four of these five funds sit in the middle of it. Lately, the bottleneck has been memory. SK Hynix has booked its high-bandwidth memory capacity through 2026, and Micron expects supply to stay tight through at least 2027. South Korea and Taiwan are home to much of the hardware behind that boom. ARKG is the odd one out: a genomics fund carried largely by two stocks (more on those in a minute).
Where these funds overlap
SMH sits at the center. It shares Nvidia, Micron, AMD, Broadcom and Intel with the Nasdaq-100 that TQQQ tracks, and it owns the largest holding in both EWT (TSMC) and EWY (SK Hynix, via its new U.S. listing). ARKG shares nothing with the other four.
Fund weights as of Oct. 6, 2026. Nasdaq-100 weights from the holdings of the Invesco QQQ Trust (QQQ).
What’s driving each fund
ARK Genomic Revolution ETF (ARKG): up 94.6%
The fund holds 32 stocks, with 62% in its top 10. Two names did most of the work: 10x Genomics (10.2% of assets) and Twist Bioscience (10.1%), each up more than 400% this year.
iShares MSCI South Korea ETF (EWY): up 87.3%
This is close to a two-stock fund. SK Hynix (24.0%) and Samsung Electronics (22.9%) make up 47% of assets, and both have more than doubled in Seoul this year.
iShares MSCI Taiwan ETF (EWT): up 82.2%
Chipmaking giant TSMC is 21.9% of the fund and MediaTek 7.2%, with the top 10 at about half. TSMC is up roughly two-thirds this year, and MediaTek has more than tripled.
VanEck Semiconductor ETF (SMH): up 69.8%
Just 25 stocks, with 67% in the top 10 and 19.1% in Nvidia. The surprise: Nvidia is up less than 30%. Micron (up about 270%), Intel (more than tripled) and AMD (nearly tripled) did the heavy lifting.
ProShares UltraPro QQQ (TQQQ): up 58.8%
TQQQ is the riskiest fund on this list, and the reason is leverage. It aims for three times the Nasdaq-100’s return each day, so a 5% drop in the index becomes roughly a 15% loss for TQQQ.
The index’s top 10 is 47% of its weight and Nvidia alone is 8.5%, so TQQQ carries Nvidia exposure worth about 26% of its assets. And because the leverage resets daily, choppy markets eat into returns. If the index falls 10% one day and rises 10% the next, it’s down 1%, while TQQQ is down about 9%. That drag is why TQQQ hasn’t delivered a full 3x of QQQ’s roughly 23% gain this year.
The other side of the trade
Zoom out to five years, and the leaderboard nearly flips.
ARKG, 2026’s top performer, is the only fund here still down over five years. It closed at $112 in February 2021 and finished 2025 near $29. TQQQ lost 79% in 2022, so despite 3x leverage it’s up about 170% over five years, not far ahead of QQQ’s roughly 110%. SMH fell 34% that same year and still leads the group, up about 400%. EWY dropped 21% in 2024, and with nearly half its assets in two stocks, one soft quarter for memory demand can sink the whole fund.
The bottom line
Each of these ETFs is a concentrated bet on a small group of stocks. Before buying, check the top holdings and size the position as if you were buying those stocks directly. TIKR is a good place to start. It lets you analyze over 100,000 global stocks. Start from Wall Street consensus estimates, or adjust the inputs to reflect your own view of the business. It’s free to use.
